Review: The X-Files - Revival
"Can you see them...? The lights...?
... They look like holes in the sky..."
PRINCE GEORGE'S COUNTY, MARYLAND
3.39 PM
"All units! All available units! Reports of shots fired at Prince George's Mall."
A fast-food worker inexplicably guns down his colleagues, whilst speaking in riddles. An asylum seeker blows himself up on a public street, whilst muttering nonsense. Two Mexican children crossing the border with illegal migrants are the only survivors of a mysterious bloodbath. They are singing an enigmatic rhyme...
Sounds a little strange? To you, maybe, but to FBI special agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully, strange is par for the course. Starting in 1993, The X-Files is a cultural phenomenon, a science fiction TV show that captured the imagination of fans in a way that no other saga has done, crossing genres to being in elements from detective drama, horror, mythology, religion and - most significantly - conspiracy theories.
One of the most commonly recurring motifs of the show was "Trust no-one." as it soon became apparent that the authorities - or rather, shadowy forces manipulating the official powers-that-be from behind the scenes - already knew that "The truth is out there", knew what the truth was, and were more than willing to kill to keep it hidden.
The popularity of The X-Files came along at the same time as the exponential growth of the Internet and the widespread dissemination of many unconventional viewpoints, including conspiracy theories regarding secret organisations that hold the true power in the world, with official governments as their puppets. These arcane cabals are linked to royalty, organised religion, organised crime and, yes, extraterrestrial invaders. Such theories continue to attract advocates to this day: anti-vaxxers, Flat Earthers, QAnon... regarded as cranks by most, but far from harmless. The X-Files operates on the disturbing premise: What if all that paranoid baloney was actually true?
As a teenager, Fox Mulder witnessed the abduction of his sister during a close encounter with a UFO. She never returned and he has forever since been haunted by a need to investigate all manner of paranormal phenomena; the unsolved FBI cases known as "X Files".
Where conventional thinking fails to bring an answer he is the very embodiment of open-mindedness, hence the flying saucer poster in his office emblazoned with the legend "I WANT TO BELIEVE."
In contrast to this, his assigned partner Dana Scully is a doctor, scientist and skeptic. He initially suspects that she has been allocated to him purely in order to debunk his theories and thwart his efforts to uncover the truth. Scully comes to share his misgivings and, despite her critical nature, begins to concede that not everything they come across has a scientific explanation.
In The X- Files - Revival by writer Joe Harris and artists Menton3, Andrew Currie and Matthew Dow Smith, Mulder and Scully - by now veterans of mysteries of the unknown - find themselves perplexed by a series of bizarre incidents that even they cannot fathom. They are soon embroiled in a conflict older than the Earth itself, known only to the secret organisations that operate below the radar and above the law, personified by the chilling spectre of the Cigarette Smoking Man.
As the tale progresses, more questions than answers arise to confront the reader. This is no straightforward sci-fi yarn, more like the proverbial riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. The insidious entities that are creating madness and mayhem are not the classic alien monsters of comic tradition, but something much stranger and unsettling.
And the sense of dislocation does not end there. It seems that the truth is not only "out there" but also within... There are links to events in the past of Scully, Mulder and their boss Skinner. This affair is personal to our protagonists in ways that get under their skin and shake their confidence.
The artists have brought the beloved drama and characters to life with style; in keeping with the macabre/noir tone, the images are often starkly contrasted with faces half-submerged in shadow. Disturbing figures lurk in the darkness and nightmares break their bonds...
Mulder and Scully are on course for a collision with a truth that threatens all they know and challenges the foundations of their very senses of who they are. Long-buried secrets and sins will be unearthed. Closets will give up their skeletons....
The truth may be "out there"... but what if it turns out to be so terrible, so horrifying, so harrowing, that ignorance truly is bliss?
Zak Webber
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